Honey and Salt
by pandamari
Summary: In which Sherlock disappears, only to show up again with a new case that may just be the fresh new murder attempt at one Dr. John Watson.


John has just finished getting the groceries. He's pleased with himself, at this small victory. After quite some time, and a short and brief tutorial given by Sherlock between cases, he has finally mastered the chip and PIN machine at the store. You just need to tell it who's boss. It tried to tell him he hadn't put the jam in the bag. But of _course _he had put the jam in the bag.

Dr. Watson is smiling about this as he trudges up the stairs of their flat, laden with bags. He has to push the door open with his foot, but he makes it inside without dropping anything. It is only after he has set the bags onto the kitchen counter that he realizes that Sherlock isn't where he left him: still in his bathrobe and irritably scraping at his violin because no new cases had come in.

The flat feels empty. John goes to put away the groceries in silence, not even batting an eyelash at the several human thumbs pickling in a jar on the top shelf. He just pushes it aside, and fills the fridge with what he's bought, while digging out his cell phone from his coat pocket with his free hand.

No new texts.

John feels inexplicably annoyed at Sherlock. He had probably gotten a call from Lestrade while he was out and had run off without him, not bothering to even text him.

He settles down on the couch with his laptop to wait, noticing absently that the coffee table had been badly burnt in his absence.

Sherlock never comes back. John stays up until he falls asleep on the couch, laptop having slid into the crevice between the cushion and the back of the couch. When he wakes up, neck stiff, the flat is as empty as ever. He gropes for his phone, which is ringing for him to wake up, and silences it.

No new texts.

He punches a "where r u" into a new message and sends it. Seconds later, beeping goes off. John finds Sherlock's phone on the bookshelf, displaying the text he has just sent. Brow furrowing, he checks the last calls. Lestrade has not phoned Sherlock in two weeks, since the last case.

Deciding it is too early to puzzle over this, John showers and eats breakfast, then heads over to the clinic. It is surprisingly busy, and John momentarily forgets about Sherlock's temporary disappearance. After all, this isn't the first time Sherlock has not come back after a night of sleuthing, but usually John knows about it, and usually there's a case to sleuth _on_.

After he finishes his third patient, he takes a short break, and has a pleasant chance with Sarah. His pager goes off though, telling him that he has a patient waiting for him.

It's a woman. It is difficult to tell her age, but she's got a hunched over back and wears an old, musty-smelling dress that John is almost certain he remembers seeing his gran wear.

She is sitting on the bench with a posture that strikes John as strikingly familiar, and is gingerly holding a strange mass of wires. Finally, John's eyes find the nicotine patches dotting the underside of the woman's arm.

"Sherlock?" he hisses in disbelief, staring gapemouthed at the shocking transformation his flatmate has taken.

Sherlock gives one of his not-now-John-I'm-thinking head jerks and goes back to analyzing the mass of wires. John sits down heavily in his chair to wait.

"Hold on... is that a _bomb_?" John says loudly, earning him a glare, which he ignores. "Sherlock, why on Earth have you brought a bomb in here? I have _patients _you know! Why are you dressed like that, and _where _have you been?" John demands, unable to stay silent any longer. Sherlock makes a low sort of growling noise at this and continues to glare.

"If you must know, I found _this_," he indicates the bomb, "wired to the door of your clinic room, waiting for you to open the door and set it off."

This effectively silences John, who is left groping for his chair again so he can collapse into it. Someone had tried to kill him?

"We have to get out of here," Sherlock says at last. "We can't stay. He'll know the bomb didn't go off..." he trails off into garbled murmurings, which such random phrases as "didn't bother turning off the water" and "must be a dachshund".

"Do you... know who it is?" John asks.

"I have theories. Seven to be exact," Sherlock says in his usual insufferable way, and there is a light in his eyes that tells John that things bode very very ill for a certain ex-army doctor, and he might as well go tell Sarah that he might not show up for work for the next few days.

"Right. Well, let's not stick around then. I'm sure you'll want to get right on it." John says, surprising himself at his ability to take the sudden turn of events in stride. Sherlock slides off the bench, and something in his movement alerts John straight away.

"Sherlock," he says, barely able to keep his voice even. "They attacked you first, didn't they?" John takes Sherlock's studiously blank face as a yes and sighs in exasperation. The scorched coffee table, of course. "Where are you hurt?" John asks, maneuvering the detective back onto the patient's bench.

"Just some burns and lacerations," Sherlock shrugs, but now John can see how even this gesture is difficult. "I suppose you'll be wanting to look at the dressings," he adds as an afterthought.

"Of course I would," John snaps, already stripping the old lady dress off. There are queer moments when it feels like he's undressing someone's grandmother, but underneath, Sherlock looks relatively "normal", as much as the word can be used when talking about Sherlock Holmes.

John looks at the dressings. He looks at them a great deal before counting to ten, taking a deep breath, and peeling them off. Several stitches and coats of burn ointment later, Sherlock is looking rather faint, which John hopes teaches him a great deal of trying to pass off his injuries.

Deep down he knows it won't.

"Now, come _on_." Sherlock says with impatience, donning his old lady costume once more.

"Where are we going?" John asks, putting on his coat.

And, looking rather pained (and not because of the stitches), Sherlock says, "Mycroft."


End file.
